Void property backlog to be tackled by fund

Aberdeenshire Council will invest just under £1 million over the next year to help tackle a backlog in updating its void property portfolio.

The authority has just over 600 void properties which require various levels of improvement works.

Some 240 properties – 174 of them in the Buchan and Banff and Buchan areas alone – require internal wall insulation works, with the council having a statutory duty to bring its housing stock up to energy efficiency standards.

A council team will be made permanent to deal with the backlog.